Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1886 — WALKING TO HIS GRAVE. [ARTICLE]

WALKING TO HIS GRAVE.

An ImlitintwMun’ Kept in Perpetual Motion by a Spinal Disease. A Strange Cano Tbatr f xritos Widespread Interest Among the Meiical Fraternity. rWabosh tJud.) letter.! 1 John Snider, Indiana’s walking man, is a dandy curiosity and no mistake. Snider lives one mile south of Mill Grove, a small station on the Pan-Handle Railway, in the eastern part of Blacklord County. Your correspondent found him industriously perfoiming his heel-and-toe act. His borne is a one-story log-cabin, located in the center of an acre lot. Around the house a beaten path, worn fully five inches below the surface, indicates the route' pursued bv Snider in his weary and almost ceaseless tramp. To vary the monotony of his tramp, Snider has two other promenades, both in the rear of the dwelling, circular in form and ninety feet in diameter. During the past three months Snider has walked incessantly out of doors, through rain, sleet, and snow; but, as the exposure had begun to tell on him, his relatives fitted up a room in the cabin for his pedestrian exercises. Two yeiws ago last April Snider, then a robust man of fifty-four, while nt work in a field, was seized with a spasmodic twitching of his arms and hands aud severe cramping of the muscles of the body. He was incapacitated for labor of any kind, end the physician summoned pronounced the case a most serious one. After a few days of suffering all symptoms of nervous derangement disappeared, and for a week Snider was apparently as well as ever. Then the muscular convulsions again manifested themselves, but this time in the legs. He lost control of both legs, and the propensity to walk, which will eventually carry Snider to the grave, took complete possession of him, and with the exception of about four hours each day, from 1 to 5 o’clock a. m., be is constantly on his feet and traveling at the rate of four miles an hour. At 5 o’clock in the morning, after a sleep of three lo four Lours, Snider begins his daily tramp and continuous walking, eating his meals as he walks, until one o’clock flbe following morning, when he sits down in a chah and sleeps soundly, being unable to rest in a recumbent position. At the outset his friends endeavored by force to induce him to remain quiet, but he immediately became frantic, and with tears in his eyes the patient begged to be released or he would die. Snider was placed in the Stato asylum at Indianapolis for a brief time, but was returned by the authorities there, pronounced harmless and incurable. He is perfectly rational, but talks but little about his peculiar affliction, and seems rather averse to newspaper notoriety. The walker stated tnat he could not possibly control himself, and that his physicians had informed him that he would walk until death claimed him. When Snider began his tramp he weighed 160 pounds; he mow weighs 150 pounds, and has not an ounce of superfluous flesh. His muscles are hard and firm. He has fully recovered from a recent indisposition, when he was thought to be dying. He walks with a quick step of uniform length, striking his heels into the soil each time, the shock being apparently a grateful one to 'his muscles. At times Snider sleeps p.s he walks, and for an hour, guided by relatives, he swings around the circle, snoring loudly, and upon awakening he runs at a rapid gait for several miles, to “rest himself,” as he says.. Snider suffers no paiu, and is apparently contented while in motion. Dr. Davidson, of Hartford City, who is Snider’s physician, and has complete charge of the case, said that, while his recovery is impossible, Snider would probably live for many months. “The affection is a disease of the spinal cord, ” said tho Doctor, “and from the hips down his physical condition is not subject to government by the brain, the great nerve center.” ' In October Snider was placed behind a plow in a field and made fair progress for a time, but w'hen the plow struck a hidden root and stopped, Snider, instead of extricating it, let ge of the handles, walked around the horses, and set off alone on his regular tramp. It is estimated that during the two years he has been walking, Snider has traveled 25,000 miles. The case excites widespread interest among the medical fraternity, many members of which have visited Snider at his home, diagnosing the disease while walking with him, as he is unable to stop even for a moment. His case is said by physicians to be unparalleled, and his powers of endurance superhuman.